BRITE Collaborative aka LCJP

BRITE Collaborative has recently gone through a full rebrand to better serve our community. Formerly known as Longmont Community Justice Partnership, our organization was often associated solely with justice involved work in the Longmont community. Recent expansion of our scope of work, as well as our area of service, has paved the way for this historic rebrand. 

BRITE Co has grown to include extensive school-based offerings as well as support to implementing restorative practices within organizations in the last few years. BRITE Co has worked with organizations across Boulder County as well as consulted with agencies across the country.

Relationships to Resilience is our schools based curriculum and model which pulls from successful restorative justice integration at the school wide level. This training focuses on

• deepening connection between students and their peers, between students and staff, and among staff themselves; 

• building proactive restorative tools; 

• conflict resolution techniques; and 

• restorative practices to address behavior in school communities. 

This work is focused on providing additional support to teachers, administrators, and students while maintaining high levels of accountability.

BRITE Collaborative also supports the ten school resource officers (SROs) that serve Longmont schools by providing yearly training and a route for BRITE to address conflict in the classroom before it rises to the level of criminal offense. These SROs receive the full extent of our school based training and can administer restorative interventions from restorative conversations all the way to a full accountability circle. In the 23-24 school year, SROs provided 46 restorative interventions in SVVSD schools, keeping kids in the classroom and mitigating conflict in a preventative manner.

“About 90% of the more than 70,500 out-of-school suspensions issued by districts during the 2023-24 academic year were for less severe infractions, such as disobedience, substance use and property destruction — behaviors that advocates and mental health experts said are better handled in schools via counseling or restorative justice practices.” (Denver Post, September 2024) Our work at BRITE Collaborative is to increase access to restorative justice interventions within schools to decrease the risk of suspension and expulsion, which is at its highest level in Colorado in 11 years.

With increased access, BRITE Collaborative has the capacity to address these behavioral incidents by receiving referrals from the school district with restorative interventions that require more time and resources. We have a 95% success rate with our interventions as opposed to a 30% success rate of the traditional criminal justice system, which can become the reality for many of these students if the harm is not repaired and the students are given the benefit of learning from their mistakes. 

The use of restorative practice in schools increases educational outcomes and bridges achievement gaps (https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/impact-restorative-practices-report). When implemented at a high level and when the caring adults share a common vision for how impactful this approach can be, we will see an even higher performing school district.

In the 2023-2024 school year, SVVSD had nearly 4000 behavioral incidents (source), 51% of those involved students of color. Many of these incidents can and should be addressed through the use of restorative interventions.

Your gift is an investment in our youth and the future of our community. It is an investment in empathy, understanding, and the belief in the potential for positive change in fellow members of our community.

With sincere gratitude,

Shalene Onyango

Executive Director